Drought:-
- Drought is one of the most frequently occurring national disasters in India. With its increased frequency and expanded coverage in the recent years, about one third of the
country is either drought prone or under desert areas. - These areas are lagging behind in agriculture and also in overall economic growth. They experience wide year-to-year fluctuations in agricultural production and incomes and have a relatively high incidence of poverty.
- The poor in these regions are highly vulnerable to a variety of risks due to their low and fluctuating incomes, high indebtedness and low human development. Helping the poor to come out of vulnerability and poverty and integrating the drought prone areas into the mainstream of development is a serious challenge faced by policy makers at present.
The History of Drought in India:-
- Droughts and famines have received attention of rulers in India right from the 13th and 14th century.
- Muhammad Tughlakh was perhaps the first Sultan to take systematic steps to alleviate efforts of droughts by distributing grains to drought affected people in Delhi in 1343 AD.
- This approach was followed and improved upon by Mughals and many other kings and rulers later on.
- During the British period also efforts were made to provide relief to droughts / famine affected people by organizing relief works and food distribution, distribution of fodder, loans to farmers to start cultivation in the next season etc.The first Scarcity Manual was prepared by the British Government in 1883, which was followed by other manuals by some provincial governments.
- The Royal Commission on Agriculture in 1928 recommended promotion of dry land farming to promote agriculture in famine affected regions. However, the efforts were
scanty and there was an alarming increase in the frequency of during the British period.
After Independence government has adopted a three pronged strategy to face droughts:
(1) providing relief to drought hit population under scarcity relief programmes
(2) designing special area development programme for drought prone areas and desert areas (DPAP – drought prone area programme and DDP – desert development programme) and
(3) promoting dry farming agriculture as a part of agricultural policy.
Somehow this approach has not worked very well, as is evident from the increasing drought prone areas in the country and the relatively high poverty and vulnerability of
people living in these areas.The new opportunities of globalization are likely to bypass these regions if adequate steps are not taken to integrate them into the mainstream economy.
Long term impacts of drought :-
- Its long term impact on agriculture in terms of farmers’ adjustment to uncertain rainfall and uncertain agricultural prospects
- poor performance of agriculture and of the overall economy
- impact on environmental resources like water, forest, land etc and biodiversity including damages to animal and plant species, which tend to raise the frequency
and intensity of droughts in the long run and which affect the life and livelihood of people adversely. - income poverty, vulnerability, and human poverty, which tend to raise the incidence of chronic poverty and of vulnerability of the poor.
What is Drought :-
According to IMD (Indian Meteorological Department) drought is a situation when the rainfall is less than 25 percent of the normal rainfall. The meteorological definition,
however, need not coincide with the hydrological or agricultural definition of drought.
Hydrological drought: Hydrological drought is a situation when the surface and ground water levels fall below the average levels and are affected not only by precipitation but also by infiltration and evaporation. Hydrological dimension of drought refers to the water distribution on land surface after precipitation has reached the ground. Major
indicators of hydrological drought are low reservoir storage, inadequate stream flows, aggregate runoff less than long term average runoff and precipitation at high elevation. Its
frequency is defined on the basis of its influence on river basin: SWSI (surface water supply index) is mostly used to measure hydrological drought.
Agricultural drought: Agricultural drought refers to shortage of water for crop growth or consistently high soil moisture deficiency over the growing season. Major indicators of agricultural drought are shortage of precipitation – departure from the normal, abnormal evaporation, deficiency of sub-soil moisture etc. Its intensity depends on the difference.between plants water demand and water availability. Crop moisture index (CMI) is used to measure agricultural drought.
Ecological drought: Ecological drought occurs when primary productivity of natural or (managed) ecosystem declines significantly owing to reduced precipitation. Socioeconomic drought incorporates features of all the above types of droughts. It occurs when precipitation is not sufficient to meet needs of human activities.
Socio-economic droughts are the aggregate of all the above droughts when precipitation is not adequate to meet the needs of human activities.
Though meteorological drought is mainly a natural phenomenon, a natural disaster, the intensity of its impact on hydrological, agricultural and ecological droughts can be
reduced by appropriate interventions, which, in turn, can also impact on socio-economic droughts. The crux of drought policy is to reduce this impact so as to reduce the adverse
impact of droughts on human well-being. The impact of droughts varies with the time scale of droughts. The longer the period of drought and the larger the number of
consecutive droughts, the greater will be its impact on agriculture, ecology and economy. The regions, which are subjected to frequent droughts, therefore need careful attention of policy makers.
Drought Prone areas of India:-
Drought Prone Area Programmee:-
The basic objective of the programme is to minimise the adverse effects of drought on production of crops and livestock and productivity of land, water and human resources ultimately leading to drought proofing of the affected areas. The programme also aims to promote overall economic development and improving the socio-economic conditions of the resource poor and disadvantaged sections inhabiting the programme areas.
How to Fight Drought :-
Drougth is a climatic phenomenon, hence it can only be fought as a long term strategy.
Short-term:- The short-term drought fighting mechanism is to reduce the socio-economic impact of drought. This is essentially bringing the vulnerable from out of imminent danger .
Long – Term:-The long term requires a integrated approach :-
- Integrated watershed development
- Ground water recharge programmes
- Afforestation to contain loss of moisture
- Desert development programmee- Fighting the aridity and restricting new regions getting decertified.
- River valley Projects
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.